Research methods and applications

¶ … marketing and sales business functions. In what other areas might descriptive research be used?

Descriptive research, including observations of consumer behavior (for example 'taste tests') or surveys of consumer behavior (such as questionnaires about consumers' buying patterns) can provide a description of current market behavior of a likely target population of a new product, or provide an explanation of buying patterns to marketing and sales teams designing a new campaign. Descriptive research can provide a record of the number of times something occurs, or frequency of a behavior. (Ryerson, 2005) As it lends itself to statistical calculations such as determining the average number of occurrences or central tendencies, can also be used in observed scientific psychological or biological studies of a human or animal population's behavior patterns.

DQ3. What are the differences between a symptom and a problem?

A symptom, such as a patient feeling cold all of the time, cannot be fully solved unless the doctor or patient's treatment team at the hospital knows the problem or the symptom's cause. If the person lives in an unheated house in the winter, the symptom of feeling cold can be immediately treated by putting the patient a warm room and getting the patient public assistance for better housing. However, if a person feels cold because they are underweight, the problem can only be solved by getting the person proper nutrition. If the person feels cold because they have pneumonia, this symptom must be treated in a different fashion, by treating the ailment. If the patient suffers from chronic Type I diabetes and feels cold because their pancreas is manufacturing inadequate levels of insulin, the patient must be treated long-term with insulin therapy. The symptom may be the same, but the cause of the problem of all of these same problems is different, thus a symptom is something that manifests itself as an effect or external phenomenon, but is caused by something underlying in the form of a cause or problem.

DQ4. How would you ethically research the solution to a strategic problem facing your organization using various research methodologies?